What’s Happening: Halloween

Food might be “just fuel” to you (although it probably isn’t), but it’s certainly much more to your kids – and that makes Halloween a particularly nerve-wracking holiday for Paleo parents. On the one hand, gorging on cheap candy isn’t doing anyone’s health any favors. But on the other hand, who would want to deprive their kids of a childhood experience they remember fondly themselves?

There are all kinds of ways to handle this – some people choose to hand out small toys or erasers instead of candy, or switch their children’s haul out for one bigger toy at the end of the night, or simply enforce a “1 piece per day” limit until their kids forget about it. But whatever you choose, take a look at The Paleo Parents’ Third Annual Halloween Round-Up, featuring Paleo-friendly Halloween recipes from around the internet.

Also check out a post from last year: Paleo Halloween Recipes. If you’re on the hunt for some perfect pumpkin recipes (or bloody soup, or mummy fingers…), this is the post for you.

Not big into the skeletons-and-eyeballs scene? Check out the rest of this week’s news below:

• Anthony Colpo takes aim at all those surveys supposedly telling us how much we’re all eating. Simply put, we lie. We lie every time, and unfortunately it makes the results more or less useless.

• Mark Sisson considers whether starch is a “famine food” (something we ate when we couldn’t get anything else) or an essential nutrient.

• If you’re struggling to get enough exercise in, Amber Rogers at Go Kaleo wants you to consider walking. Yes, walking.

• Did you ever wonder how much of a difference there really is between factory-farmed and pasture-raised pork? Michael Ruhlman’s blog has a visual (not graphic or disturbing, and fine for kids). Unfortunately, this week the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future also did an analysis on how well we’re all doing at getting rid of factory farms, and the results aren’t great.

• In a fairly important victory, a cardiologist published his vindication of saturated fat in the BMJ (a highly respected medical journal). Progress!

• Are you consumed by food? At Robb Wolf’s blog, Amy Kubal would like to remind you that Paleo is not a religion and it’s OK to be less than perfect sometimes.

• Chris Kresser gives some tips on how to be more productive without wrecking your health – including simple but often neglected habits like regular movement.

• From Paleo NonPaleo, a simple tip for getting your rational brain back in charge, and overcoming the urge to overeat for emotional reasons.

• Gluten might be bad for you, but that doesn’t mean “gluten-free” is a synonym for healthy! Jordan at SCD lifestyle takes on the $12 billion gluten-free health fad.

What’s your favorite example of a product unnecessarily labeled gluten-free? Have you spotted gluten-free tea? Gluten-free water? Let us know on Facebook or Google+!